Smartphone
manufacturer Xiaomi’s latest offering the Mi 4i may be garnering much buzz in
the market, but that hasn’t stopped a large chunk of users from already
speculating about the company’s next offering, the Mi 5. According to certain
sections of the mobile tech industry, Xiaomi is reportedly toying with a new
technology for fingerprint scanning for its new smartphone. That the company
certainly has a new trick up its sleeve became evident when it filed for a
fingerprint scanning technology patent with Chinese industry authorities.
According to the latest reports that have emerged, Xiaomi will likely integrate
this fingerprint scanning tech with the touch-sensitive buttons that its
smartphones already feature.

If
this is indeed the case, the fingerprint scanner could be embedded into the
phone’s captive keys as opposed to the conventional method of using physical
keys for this purpose. The latter technique is already used by Samsung and
Apple.

The
patent application that Xiaomi has filed states that the device will carry
optical as well as bottom fingerprint sensors, which will be embedded into the
cover glass’ terminal equipment.

Over
the past few days, leaks of the designs planned by Xiaomi show that the Mi 5
will ostensibly have a 5.2-inch Quad HD display and will operate on Android 5.0
Lollipop. The phone will also pack a Snapdragon 805 chipset and a front (8MP)
and rear camera (16MP). The leaks also suggest that the smartphone could carry
storage of 16/64 GB with a 3GB RAM. All these features, accentuated by the new
and seemingly exciting fingerprint scanner could create the perfect formula for
the success of the Mi 5.

It
now remains to be seen how the new smartphone braves the competition, as and
when it launches.